I had a dog named Google

Google recently acquired Nik Software and it has turned out to be a great thing for photographers. They announced a significant price drop in the Nik software suite and because I had purchased a previous plug-in, they allowed me to download the full suite for FREE! Eric and I just purchased a new website template from Blu Domain and all our photographs had to be reprocessed to accommodate the larger image size. I used the Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro modules to do all the tweaks and they performed great. Both of us hope you enjoy our new and improved website. Be sure to pass the link on to all your friends.

Topaz is more than a gemstone

Does this story sound familiar? You return home and start the process of ranking the gigabytes of photographs you just shot. Some are clear keepers and others are so bad you wonder why you shot them in the first place. But there are a large number of photographs that fall in that middle category. The composition is interesting but they don’t have that impact factor. I ran across a set of plugins from Topaz Labs that add an interesting artistic flavor to my ho-hum photographs. Check them out and see if they can save some of your shots from the delete key.
Topaz Labs

Raining fire

Here are a few tips to help you shoot fireworks; 1) use a tripod, 2) use a remote release to trip the shutter, 3) manual focus the lens just short of infinity, 4) set the ISO to 100, 5) set the camera to manual mode and start with an aperture value of F11 and the shutter speed set to bulb. Hold the shutter open long enough to capture one or two fireworks. Check the LCD screen and if the photo is too light, switch to F16 or if it is too dark, switch to F8. Fine tune your adjustments as necessary to get the proper exposure. You also can combine shots in Photoshop by layering the images and using the screen blend mode.

Awkward

Have you ever been frustrated with having to focus lock on a subject and then recompose before taking the shot and then repeating these steps time after time? I learned about an important feature that the Canon camera has that helps with this dilemma. Under the custom function menu there is an option to use the button on the back of the camera to focus and the shutter button to take the photo. It is a little awkward at first but it is a technique that you will embrace with time. Just think, you can focus once on your subject with the back button and then take several shots with the release button without having the focus point change. This is a great way to take bracketed photos for HDR imaging.

The forgotten manual

Today I purchased a floor stand fan and it came unassembled. I took a quick look at the instruction sheet and went full throttle putting it together. The assembly went fine and it worked when I plugged it in and turned it on. I'm afraid many of us treat our camera manuals the same way. We have a brief look at it before we take off on our first photo shoot. Unfortunately this approach means we miss some of the jewels hidden within those pages. I highly recommend reading your camera manual on a yearly basis (rainy Saturday mornings are a great time). In the next blog I will share with you one of the tips I learned at a seminar but found out the information was in the owners manual all the time.

Gettin' Eduka8ed

I recently upgraded from Photoshop CS3 to CS5. The features of the new version are amazing but how does one get to know how to use them all? A few years ago I discovered online software training courses at "Lynda.com". They offer lessons on all of the major software products including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You can subscribe to their service on a monthly or annual basis. Click on the link below and see all they have to offer. I highly recommend any classes taught by Chris Orwig or Deke McClelland.
Lynda.com

Take three

I've watched many photographers take photographs and one habit that I often see is squeezing the shutter release button too hard. Inevitably the camera moves and depending upon the shutter speed, a blurry image might result. A technique that I've put into practice when a tripod is not available and the shutter speed is low due to the lighting situation, is to take three photographs in a row using the continuous shooting mode. That way if the camera moves during the first exposure, likely either the second or third image will be much sharper because the shutter button is already held down. Don't worry about wasting shots, find the sharpest one and delete the others. Isn't digital the greatest!

Social Media

Things must be getting tougher for professional photographers. I've noticed many of them are branching out into new areas to make a living at their craft. Many are utilizing facebook, twitter, blogs, and websites all to make themselves more visible to the world for networking purposes. Another area I've noticed an increase in activity is the offering of guided photo trips and seminars. I wanted to mention a seminar I attended a few years ago put on by John and Barb Gerlach. They specialize in wildlife photography and their work is impressive. Check out their website and if you have a chance to attend, you won't be disappointed.
Gerlach Nature Photography

Far Far Away...

I recently returned from a vacation trip to Florida with my wife. During our stay on Sanibel Island I decided to take a stab at bird photography. I brought along a 70-200 mm lens with a 1.4x tele-converter giving me a maximum focal length of 280 mm. I knew that length was marginal for bird photography but I gave it a try. When I returned home and viewed the images, I was disappointed how small many of the birds were in the frame. Now I know why wildlife photographers have those 500 to 800 mm lenses in their collection. I would like one of those long lenses but the cost is prohibitive so I take what I can get with what I’ve got and leave the rest for the pros.

In sync

As a continuation of the previous blog, I wanted to mention one other detail about the camera's date/time feature. If you shoot with more than one camera while traveling, it is important to sync the date and time between each of the cameras. This way when you combine and view all the images on your computer when you return home, they will be in chronological order.

The Devil's in the Details

I had heard the expression "The Devil's in the Details" for a long time but didn't realize the saying has been around since the mid 1800's according to Wikipedia. Planning for a photographic trip to a national park requires a lot of preparation, looking out for that detail that could easily be overlooked. I wanted to mention one item in particular that should be considered if your DSLR camera is several years old. In the Canon line, there is a small date/time battery located in the compartment that holds the main battery. This battery does just what it says - keeps track of the date and time when the main battery is removed from the camera for charging. This is where paying attention to the details is important. I always carry an extra date/time battery in my camera bag in case the original one decides to die when traveling and no store is nearby to purchase a new one. The battery is only a few dollars and is easily changed. Paying attention to those small details will make your trip a bit smoother.

Are you prepared?

How important are your digital photographs to you? What would it be like if tomorrow your hard drive containing all of your images died? You say, no problem - they are all backed up on an external drive. That is a good answer but what if next week your home was robbed or worse your home had a fire and all those hard drives were lost! I know it is not a pleasant thought but it could happen. Not only would it involve your photographs but all of the other files you have generated over the years (spreadsheets, documents, tax information, etc.). A little over a year ago I heard a podcast about companies that will remotely store your files on their secure servers for a modest fee. I reviewed them and decided to use a company called "Backblaze". They offer unlimited storage space for only $50 a year and the files are backed up in real time. For only a few dollars a month it is a relief to know my files are secure and recoverable.
Backblaze

Panosaurus what?

One of the cool things about celebrating a birthday is getting to buy another piece of camera gear. This year I purchased a Panosaurus Rex. What is that you might ask. Well, it is a device designed to create a 360 degree panoramic image. I know panoramas can be created without one but what makes this unit unique is that it rotates around the nodal point of the lens. The individual photos are captured in the portrait mode at every 20 degrees for a total of 18 images. This allows adequate overlap and improves the chances of getting a perfectly stitched panoramic. The unit is well designed and simple to setup. Check out the website below for more information.
The Panosaurus

Name that image

I remember owning an Olympus point-n-shoot that saved my images using the date as a prefix. This way no two images would ever have the same file name. For some reason, Canon chose not to do it that way. After shooting several thousand photographs, with multiple cameras, I found images that started having the same file name and it was easy to overwrite or delete an image not knowing they were different. So I took the lesson I learned from Olympus and applied it to the images shot with my Canon gear. I use a program that renumbers my images using the following format (year, month, day, hour, minute, and second plus original image name). It gets the date information automatically from the EXIF data. This way I'll never have two images with the same file name. So simple but yet so profound.

Free is OK by me!

I must admit it, I'm hooked on podcasts. It's amazing how many are available on ITunes and the best part - they are free! There are several devoted to the subject of photography and I wanted to mention two of them that I've found beneficial in expanding my photography knowledge. The first one is TWIP which stands for "This Week in Photography", hosted by Frederick Van Johnson and the other one is "Photo Focus", led by Scott Bourne. Both podcasts are also available to listen to directly through their websites. It's a great way to pass the time while commuting in the car.
www.twiplog.com
www.photofocus.com

What has one leg?

It's a monopod. There are times when a regular tripod is just too awkward but some type of camera/lens support is needed. When we use our long zoom lenses, stability is critical for sharp photographs. Yes, image stabilized lenses help but the monopod further steadies the system. Also the monopod keeps the weight off your arms and shoulders. This becomes important when you shoot for long periods of time like at sporting events. I particularly like this "EZ" model made by Slik. The upper portion of the column has a quick adjustment feature that helps get the viewfinder to eye level. It's a highly recommended purchase.
www.slik.com

The eyes have it

I've often wondered if a photographer is born with an eye for composing images or is it an acquired skill. For me I think it is a little of both. As I study the works of professional photographers, their achievements inspire me to master the art of photography. For a great shot, several things have to come together but perhaps the most significant is just being there at the right time. I've been watching the Ken Burns National Park series and I'm amazed at how he captured the park scenes at just the right moment. I guess the unpredictability of nature is what makes this hobby so challenging.

Me a Publisher?

Digital photography has not only changed the way people take photos but it has provided a unique way for those photographs to be displayed. Besides the online web services that I mentioned in the previous blog, there is the ability for ordinary, common, average people like myself to publish a book displaying my own personal work. There are two different companies that I've tried and I can highly recommend them to you. (No I'm not being paid to say it). MyPublisher and Blurb have high quality books that are reasonably priced. My wife and I have created a couple of family vacation books together. We built the pages in Photoshop and uploaded them to the bookmaker using their software (available for free on their websites). There are pre-made templates available that make the creating process easy if you choose to use them. The books are a neat way to show off your work and to preserve memories.
www.mypublisher.com
www.blurb.com

Crop Circles

Many people are choosing to display their photographs using an online service such as Flickr or Pbase. The majority of digital cameras take photographs at a width to height ratio of 4:3. There is no rule saying that the photographs displayed on the web have to be this ratio. You're free to crop the photographs as squares, panoramas, or any other shape you heart desires. Eric and I crop our photographs to the proportions that look good to us. It is only when we print them for framing that we are restricted to 5x7 or 8x10 or 11x14 or 16x20 crop ratios. Be creative with your cropping and you might even try circles. Get it, crop circles?

Color Correction the Easy Way

The Canon digital SLR cameras do a fine job getting the white balance correct except for artificial lighting situations. This can be easily corrected in Photoshop if a neutral gray surface is shot in the same lighting conditions. Eric and I use a product called a WhiBal card. It is very portable and only has to be photographed once in any given situation. Since we shoot in RAW, the color balance can easily be corrected using the shot of the WhiBal card and then copied to all of the other images. We find this technique has been very helpful when shooting indoor basketball games and wrestling matches. It is a beautiful thing!
www.rawworkflow.com

Flash'em...

When shooting photographs of people outdoors it is often a good idea to use flash. The flash fills in harsh shadows on the face or helps illuminate a person standing in the shade. Most point and shoot cameras will automatically adjust the output to balance the flash with the daylight. Digital SLRs have flash compensation that allows the photographer to adjust the amount of light hitting the subject. Give it a try the next time you're taking photographs at the family gathering or graduation party.

Breaking the Rules

I hesitate to use the word rule when talking about photography. Basically any rule can be broken so let's stick will guidelines or suggestions. Over the next few blogs I'll bring you some general composition tips. The first one is called the rule of thirds (sorry I used that word 'rule' again). Generally speaking, the main subject is most pleasing to view when it is located at one of the intersection points of the four red lines in the image above (green dots). It could be a person's eyes, a boat on a lake, a football player, or anything else. As you view photographs in books and magazines, see how many photographers follow the 'rule of thirds' (oops).

Where's the remote???

There is one more item I want to mention on the subject of getting a sharp image. Besides using the mirror lock up and 2-second delay feature, I use a remote release to trip the shutter. There are two types produced for the Canon series of DSLR cameras, one is corded and the other is cordless. Unfortunately the infrared sensor for the cordless remote is only on the front of the camera. It would be convenient for landscape shooters if a sensor was also placed on the rear of the camera. Either one you choose will help to reduce potential camera vibrations by keeping your finger off the release button.

Simply Magical

The last camera filter that I will mention is the polarizer. This filter is used primarily to reduce reflections and darken a blue sky in scenic landscapes. Even though the polarizer works like magic, it needs to be used with care. It is easy to over-polarize a sky and make it too dark. Also with a wide angle lens the sky is often not polarized evenly making it look unnatural. If you forget your polarizer, there is a Photoshop trick that will somewhat simulate the effect of a polarizer to darken the sky. That's a subject for another time.

Split the Difference

The human eye is amazing. It can perceive a wide range of light values that make a camera envious. The camera has a limited dynamic range and this presents a problem for scenic landscapes. To compress the range, Eric and I use the graduated neutral density filter. The upper half is dark and the lower half is clear. This allows the exposure for the bright sky to be held back while achieving a proper exposure for the foreground. The filter is made in varying strengths. We use the one with a two f-stop range but can't wait for a three f-stop version to be produced. A similar effect can be accomplished using HDR (high dynamic range) with multiple exposures, but that is for another blog.

Sunglasses for Cameras?

The waterfall is one of the most interesting landscape subjects to photograph. Eric and I both like to see the water blurred instead of frozen in place. The shutter speed needed to accomplish this varies depending upon the speed and volume of the water. The shutter speed should be slow enough to blur the water but fast enough that the water does not loose all detail. We use ISO 100 and an aperture value up to F16. Sometimes the resulting shutter speed is still too fast and we need to reduce the light entering the lens. We use neutral density filters that act like sunglasses to get to the correct shutter speed. It is generally a trial and error method but by bracketing the exposures, we find a combination that produces the result we desired.

Cheap Insurance

Eric and I both own several lenses and they represent a significant investment. To protect them from mist and dirt while traveling in the national parks, we always use a UV filter. We buy high quality filters and keep them clean to reduce artifacts when shooting backlit landscapes. Along with the protective filter we use a lens hood to prevent stray light from crossing the front of the lens, causing flare and reducing contrast. There are several other filter types we regularly use and I'll discuss them in future blogs.

Gadgets or Gizmos ?

I can remember the days when I waited anxiously for my roll of film to be processed and printed. It seemed like it took forever! Now with digital cameras the images can be viewed immediately on the LCD screen to evaluate exposure and composition. As great as this new technology is, I've found the LCD screen difficult to view in bright sunlight. A gadget that helps in this situation is called a Hoodman loupe. It fits over an LCD screen up to three inches and has diopter correction for those of us with less than perfect eye sight. This gizmo is one of my favorites for outdoor photography.
www.hoodmanusa.com

How low can it go

The vast majority of people use their tripod fully extended because it is convenient to see through the cameras viewfinder. I've found that using my tripod somewhere between 6 inches and 2 feet above the ground provides a unique view of the world. It's not easy looking into the viewfinder at that height so someone designed a gadget called a right angle viewer. Simple remove the cameras eyecup and slide the viewer into its place. The viewer can be pointed up, allowing easy viewing of the subject. Give one a try and see what interesting compositions you can create.
www.hoodmanusa.com

Mirror Mirror

I want to continue the discussion about reducing camera vibration when taking landscape photos. When Eric and I traveled to Glacier National Park a few years ago, I took several shots of a distant waterfall using a 300mm lens on a tripod. When I returned home and viewed the images, they were all blurry. I didn't understand what went wrong. Later I read an article in Popular Photography magazine that showed image blurring verses shutter speed. It turns out that when the mirror in a digital SLR flips up, it vibrates the camera and can result in a blurry photo if the shutter speed is between 1/2 and 1/30 of a second. That was the shutter speed range I had used. In addition, the problem was magnified with the 300mm telephoto lens.
Now I use the cameras mirror lockup feature along with a two second delay. This allows the mirror to flip up and the vibrations dampen before the photo is captured two seconds later. This technique has totally eliminated the problem and our shots are sharp at any shutter speed.

Three legs are better than none

The tripod is perhaps the most important tool for obtaining sharp images in landscape photography. Because we set our cameras to ISO 100 (for low image noise) and use an aperture between F8 and F16 (for increased depth of field), the resulting shutter speed is often below what can be successfully hand held.
Eric and I use the same Bogen-Manfrotto tripod legs but we use different heads. Eric prefers the three-axis head whereas I like to use a ball head.
Whatever tripod you choose, I would recommend getting the heaviest you can comfortable carry with you. A sturdy tripod will help dampen vibrations that could transfer to the camera body and reduce sharpness. Also I would suggest not extending the center column above the connection point of the tripod legs. More will be said about techniques to reduce vibrations in an upcoming blog.
bogen imaging

Tidal Wave

I must admit as a photographer I have a few pet peeves. Probably the one at the top of the list is a horizon that is not level. I’ve seen sunrise and sunset photographs of the ocean and the horizon was tilted. I wonder what keeps the ocean from sloshing around and sending a huge tidal wave to South America or Nova Scotia.
I know the situation can easily be corrected in Photoshop but doing so will result in pixels being deleted when the images are re-cropped. There is a nifty little gadget available that will help, the two-axis bubble level. Just slide the level into the hot shoe adapter and line up the bubbles using your tripod head adjustments. It will work in both the landscape and portrait modes. Give one a try and save those precious pixels from the crop tool.

Zip-it !!!

I can remember the day vividly. While I was waiting for my friend to get the rental car, I opened my camera bag and took out the GPS. Hurriedly I turned the unit on and set the destination for Sanibel Island. Chuck returned with the keys and I grabbed my luggage and camera bag. To my surprise, I had forgotten to close my bag and I still don’t know why the gear didn’t fall out onto the concrete sidewalk below. That was one of those definable moments in my life. Ever since, I’ve made the effort to immediate close my camera bag after opening one of the compartments.
It may not seem much like a tip, but can you imagine the financial loss and missed photographic opportunities if the unthinkable happened to your equipment? Just get into the habit of "zipping" your camera bag closed after every use and your vacation will be much more enjoyable!
www.lowepro.com

Brand Battle

Eric and I both shoot Canon digital cameras. It all started with Canon being the first to introduce an affordable digital SLR camera called the Rebel. I think they beat Nikon to the market by about six months. To be honest, if the Nikon came out first, we both would be Nikon shooters. I know many people are extremist about what brand of camera they shoot but we are not of that persuasion. I've been taking photos for nearly thirty years and have come to the conclusion that it is the person behind the camera that makes the difference and not the equipment itself.
The information that we will post in the blogs will be generic and applicable to any type of dSLR camera (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony, etc.). It is our desire to share with you some of what we have learned on our photographic journey. Let the sharing begin!
www.usa.canon.com